Northboro priest's fall laid to gambling addiction

Sunday

Oct 20, 2013 at 6:00 AMOct 20, 2013 at 6:49 PM

By Shaun Sutner, TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

NORTHBORO — In his last pastoral note to parishioners before he was placed on leave for allegedly embezzling more than $230,000 from the church and school he ran, the Rev. Stephen M. Gemme argued for forgiveness.

"Human beings are fragile. They fall into sin, they get scared and make choices that are not always good," the 43-year-old priest wrote in the July 28 note in the online newsletter of St. Bernadette Parish. "If there is a person that you need to forgive and you find it hard, please pray for them."

By Aug. 8, officials of the Worcester Catholic Diocese had removed Rev. Gemme from his posts and sent him to residential treatment at an undisclosed location for a self-confessed gambling addiction.

This month, after poring over financial records of the school — the diocese's biggest elementary-middle school, with more than 500 students from around MetroWest — and the church, diocesan officials referred the matter to the district attorney's office for criminal investigation.

Diocesan officials said the pastor, who was appointed to the parish in 2003, had stolen methodically from two separate church and school accounts since at least 2009. It went undetected until a member of the school's advisory board flagged a financial irregularity in a school account and informed Bishop Robert J. McManus in mid-July. Rev. Gemme immediately acknowledged a gambling problem.

"We're looking at a lot of activity over four years," said the diocese's spokesman, Raymond L. Delisle.

The initial suspicion of Rev. Gemme came less than two weeks after the pastor sparked local controversy and national media attention by publicly criticizing the Worcester Art Museum for backing gay marriage.

He said his parish would not support the museum after it used its social media channels to congratulate the gay community after the U.S. Supreme Court's June decision that a law banning federal recognition of same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. The museum also offered to host gay weddings.

Meanwhile, though Bishop McManus declared that he would pursue "full restitution" from the pastor, it is unclear from where that money would come.

Mr. Delisle said the diocese may look to see what its insurance may cover.

But Rev. Gemme's only known financial asset is the small, red ranch house he owns in his hometown of Westminster, where his parents, Jacqueline and Raymond Gemme, now live. That house is valued for tax purposes at $160,000, according to town assessors' records.

Mrs. Gemme answered a knock at the front door one evening last week, saying "no comment" to a reporter before quickly shutting the door.

Mr. Delisle said it is not known whether Rev. Gemme gambled online, at the nearby Connecticut casinos, or elsewhere.

The money that the pastor allegedly stole was only a fraction of the school's annual budget of about $3.5 million, Mr. Delisle noted. He maintained that the school and 760-family parish are still on sound financial footing.

On Oct. 7, the bishop was given the totals of what was lost. Rev. Gemme resigned Oct. 10.

Mr. Delisle said the thefts occurred over four years because audits generally only happen when there are changes in personnel, making it difficult to catch such problems while a priest is at a certain parish for many years.

But while "everyone will kind of look at their own policies," he said the bishop is not planning on changing the frequency of audits.

"This is viewed more as an anomaly than a rule," he said. "I think the point is, as soon as it was identified, it was dealt with."

While the diocese annually releases its audited financial reports, which include budgets for diocesan schools in Worcester and Fitchburg, the reports do not include finances of individual parishes and parish schools such as St. Bernadette. The Northboro school does not provide any financial reports on its website.

St. Bernadette Principal Deborah O'Neil refused to comment for this story. Members of the 10-person school advisory board did not return calls seeking comment or could not be reached for comment.

However, parishioners exiting an 8:30 a.m. weekday Mass at the small brick church last week expressed surprise about Rev. Gemme, but also deep concern about the thefts his superiors say he committed.

"Everyone has their own problems. He was very religious, but I'm disappointed in him and the church," said one man, who appeared to be in his 70s and declined to give his name.

"I think everyone's been pretty upset about this," said another churchgoer, who also declined to be identified. "We couldn't see it coming at all."

By most accounts, Rev. Gemme was a popular leader of his flock.

Before graduating from a Baltimore seminary and being appointed to head the parish in 2003, he taught history, economics and public speaking at St. Peter-Marian Central Catholic Junior-Senior High School in Worcester in the mid-1990s.

At St. Bernadette, he replaced the Rev. Chester J. Devlin, who had been removed after an allegation of sexual misconduct.

"He was very well thought of in this community, very affable, a very regular guy," said Northboro's police chief, Mark K. Leahy.

Nevertheless, instances of Catholic priests getting caught up in embezzlement scandals are not uncommon, say church critics.

Terence McKiernan, president of Waltham-based BishopAccountability.org, maintained that a similar dynamic is at work in clergy embezzlement cases and clergy sexual abuse cases.

"It's the same managerial behavior we see in the abuse crisis; it's not a surprise," Mr. McKiernan said. "The guiding principle is the same, to protect the church from scandal. There aren't very many controls on how money is handled."

As for where Rev. Gemme is at the moment, diocesan officials won't say.

As of now, Connecticut is the only state in New England with an inpatient treatment program for gamblers, run by the Midwestern Connecticut Council on Alcoholism.

In the past, Catholic priests and others affiliated with the church have been sent for treatment for sexual abuse issues, addictions and other problems to the church-affiliated St. Luke Institute in suburban Washington, D.C.

Brian Wallace, spokesman for the Bridgeport, Conn., Catholic Diocese, said that while his diocese has not had a priest with a gambling addiction, residential treatment for gambling could easily be made available at other addiction facilities by contracting with a problem gambling counseling provider.

A few major cases of church officials with gambling problems have cropped up in recent years, notably in Las Vegas and Chicago.

But gambling-related embezzlement in general is increasingly common, asserted Robert H. Steele, an anti-casino activist from Connecticut who was involved in the battle against a proposed slot machine parlor in Millbury over the summer.

Mr. Steele said Rev. Gemme's is a "very sad story."

"These incidents are spread across profession over profession over profession,"said Mr. Steele, a former congressman and the author of a recent anti-casino novel. "These stories are never-ending and are recurring. People have no idea how big a problem this is."

Allison Knothe of the Telegram & Gazette staff contributed to this report. Contact Shaun Sutner at ssutner@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @ssutner.